Gísli Guðjónsson

Gísli Hannes Guðjónsson, CBE (born 26 October 1947) is an Icelandic-British academic, educator, forensic psychologist and former detective.[2] He is Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Psychiatry of King's College London and a Professor in the Psychology Department at Reykjavik University.[3] Gísli is an internationally renowned authority on suggestibility and false confessions and is one of the world's leading experts on false memory syndrome.[2]

Gísli Guðjónsson CBE[1]
Born	Gísli Hannes Guðjónsson 26 October 1947 Reykjavik, Iceland
Nationality	Icelandic
Education	Brunel University London University of Surrey
Occupation	Academic, professor
Known for	Authority on suggestibility and false confessions

Biography

Gísli was born on 26 October 1947 to Guðjón Aðalsteinn Guðmundsson and Þóra Hannesdóttir.[4] His twin brother joined the Reykjavik Criminal Investigation Police while he chose to study economics at Brunel University London (BSc, 1975), but changed to psychology whilst in his second year.[5][6] He completed his studies at the University of Surrey (MSc, 1977; PhD, 1981).[7] In 1982, together with MacKeith he coined the term memory distrust syndrome, to describe those who distrust their own memories and are motivated to rely on external (non-self) sources to verify the accuracy of memories.[8]

In the 1990s he worked as head of forensic psychology services and clinical psychologist to the Bethlem Royal Hospital and Maudsley Hospital.[9]

He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours for services to clinical psychology.[10][11]

Work

Gísli's expert testimony was the basis for the convictions of the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four being overturned.[12] He created the Gudjonsson suggestibility scale to measure how susceptible someone is to coercion during an interrogation. An author of several books, Gudjonsson was a coauthor on the American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS) White Paper by Saul Kassin et al. (2010) titled "Police-induced confessions: Risk factors and recommendations."[13]

Selected list of publications

• Psychology brings justice: the science of forensic psychology (Crim Behav Ment Health. 2003;13(3):159-67)
• The Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions. A Handbook. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. (2003)
• Forensic Psychology. A Guide to Practice (with Lionel Haward)
• The relationship between confabulation and intellectual ability, memory, interrogative suggestibility and acquiescence. (Personality and Individual Differences, 1995)
• The Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scales Manual. Hove, UK: Psychology Press. (1997)
• The Relationship Of Alcohol Withdrawal Symptoms To Suggestibility And Compliance. (Psychology, Crime & Law, June 2004, Vol. 10(2), pp. 169/177)
• The Psychology of False Confessions: Forty Years of Science and Practice (2018)

See also

• Guðmundur and Geirfinnur case
• Memory distrust syndrome
• Perjury

References

1. "Queen's Birthday Honours 2011: list in full". The Daily Telegraph. 11 June 2011. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
2. Cox, Simon (May 2014). "The Reykjavik Confessions". BBC News. Retrieved 12 November 2020.
3. "Science and Justice" (PDF). The British Academy of Forensic Sciences. 5 May 2018. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
4. "Guðjón Aðalsteinn Guðmundsson". Morgunblaðið (in Icelandic). 8 January 2004. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
5. Adeane, Anthony (2018). Out of Thin Air: coming to Netflix this year. Hachette UK. p. 175. ISBN 978-1-78648-745-2 – via Google Books.
6. Gudjonsson, Gisli (2014). "How I got started: From memory distrust to false confessions". Applied Cognitive Psychology. 28 (5): 809–811. doi:10.1002/acp.3037.
7. ‘GUDJONSSON, Prof. Gisli Hannes’, Who's Who 2016, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2016
8. van Bergen, Saskia; Jelicic, Marko; Merckelbach, Harald (2008). "Interrogation techniques and memory distrust". Psychology, Crime & Law. 14 (5): 425–434. doi:10.1080/10683160701822533. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
9. "House of Commons Hansard". Parliament of the United Kingdom. 15 March 1995. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
10. "No. 59808". The London Gazette (Supplement). 11 June 2011. p. 7.
11. "Main list of the 2011 Queen's birthday honours recipients" (PDF). BBC News UK. Retrieved 11 June 2011.
12. Gudjonsson, Gisli H. (2002). "The 'Guildford Four' and the 'Birmingham Six'". In Gudjonsson, Gisli H (ed.). The Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions: A Handbook. John Wiley & Sons. doi:10.1002/9780470713297. ISBN 9780470844618.
13. Kassin, Drizin, Grisso, Gudjonsson, Leo, & Redlich (2010). Police-induced confessions: Risk factors and recommendations. Law and Human Behavior, 34, 3-38.